Introduction
This privacy policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. This privacy policy also sets out your rights in relation to the personal data which we hold about you. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.
Purpose of this privacy notice
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how Ceres Energy Ltd collects and processes your personal data through interactions you may have with the business including through our contact form on this website.
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.
Controller
Ceres Energy Ltd is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as Ceres Energy Ltd “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice).
We have appointed Louise Clayton-Hibbott as our data protection manager (DPM) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPM using the details set out below.
This version was last updated July 2023 and historic versions are can be obtained by contacting us.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
Third-party links
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
The data we collect about you
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:
- Identity Data – includes first name, last name, company position, and title.
- Contact Data – includes phone numbers, location of company, billing address, delivery address, and email address.
- Transaction Data – includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased.
- Marketing and Communications Data – includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
If you fail to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
How your personal data is collected
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Direct interactions
- You may give us your Identity, Contact and Marketing and Communications Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
- apply for our products or services;
- are referred by a common connection/third party;
- subscribe to our service or publications;
- request marketing to be sent to you; or
- give us some feedback.
Automated technologies or interactions.
As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
Third parties or publicly available sources.
We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
Technical Data from the following parties:
(a) analytics providers such as Google based outside the UK;
How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
- Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
Purpose/Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
To register you as a new customer | a) Identity | Performance of a contract with you |
b) Contact | ||
To process and deliver contracts including: | a) Identity | a) Performance of a contract with you |
a) Manage payments, fees and charges | b) Contact | (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us) |
b) Collect and recover money owed to us | c) Marketing and Communications | |
d) Transactional Data | ||
To manage our relationship with you which will include: | a) Identity | a) Performance of a contract with you |
a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy | b) Contact
c) Profile Data |
b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
b) Asking you for customer feedback | d) Marketing and Communications | c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services) |
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)
|
a) Identity | a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) |
b) Contact
c) Technical |
b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation | |
To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences | (a) Technical
(b) Usage |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you | (a) Identity
(b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Usage (e) Profile (f) Marketing and Communications |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business) |
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.
Promotional offers from us
We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical and Marketing and Communications Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.
Third-party marketing
We do not share personal data with third parties for marketing. Should this ever change, we will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data for marketing purposes with anyone outside Ceres Energy Ltd.
Opting out
You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.
Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, warranty registration, product/service experience or other transaction.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
Disclosures of your personal data
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.
Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
International transfers
We do not transfer your personal data internationally within BSL, or with any external parties.
Data security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
Data retention
How long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances. We will respond to all legitimate requests within one month, however if the request is complex we may extend this by a further two months.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Glossary
Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
Your legal rights
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
Complain to the regulator. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us. All requests by a data subject for their data will be dealt with promptly and in line with the time periods set by legislation.